India's December infrastructure output rises at slowest in 14 months

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -India's infrastructure output, which makes up 40% of its industrial production, grew at its slowest pace in more than a year in December, due to weakness in crude oil production and electricity generation, data showed on Wednesday.

Infrastructure output rose 3.8% year-on-year, the lowest rate of growth since 0.7% recorded in October, 2022.

"Following the tepid core sector growth in December 2023, we project the IIP (Index of Industrial Production) expansion for that month at a bleak 1-3%," Aditi Nayar, an economist at ICRA said.

Infrastructure output measures activity in eight sectors, including coal and electricity.

Electricity generation grew 0.6% in the month, cement output increased 1.3%, petroleum refined products grew 2.6%, while crude oil production fell 1%.

Coal and natural gas were the best-performing segments with production rising 10.6% and 6.6% respectively, the government figures showed.

In the first nine months of the financial year that started on April 1, infrastructure output rose 8.1% year-on-year, the data showed.

(Reporting by Shivangi Acharya and Nikunj Ohri; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Sharon Singleton)